Low Pressure Extraction

Anyone ever tried to extract cannibinoids by dropping pressure to their vaporization point?

I was at a friend's and they said that dispensaries are deploying a process by which they are able to gaseously remove the cannibinoids. Some of the used herb is then being resold on black market. I can't find anything on YouTube showing the process.

I'm not sure how you'd collect the vapor, I'm not even sure it'd work, but maybe you could soak the bud in a high boiling point solvent and then drop pressure. The solvent would dissolve cannibinoids, and then after pressure began to drop, cannibinoids would vaporize out of the solvent/bud mixture. Then you'd maybe seperate the vacuum into portions and allow air back in. The vapor would condense on the sides of the partitioned off portion of the chamber, then you'd use a bit of a low boil point solvent to wash the condensed oil from the sides and do a final vac purge?

I bought some live resin that looked very proccessed. It had what looked like THCA crystals soaked in terps. It looked like they were combining ingredients to make the product. This led me to think there's validity in what my friend shared. I doubt they'd create a product this way unless they've found an efficient procedure to extract precisely the cannibinoids desired. It would make a very consistent product despite the raw material supplied.

(I don't have a vac chamber to play with)

No i didnt think cannabinoids have the ability to go through those kind of organic chem routines.

I could be wrong but it shouldnt reform as the existing compound.

Nice to get a link or something see what they are doing or proposing

ChiefRunningPhist said:

Anyone ever tried to extract cannibinoids by dropping pressure to their vaporization point?

I was at a friend's and they said that dispensaries are deploying a process by which they are able to gaseously remove the cannibinoids. Some of the used herb is then being resold on black market. I can't find anything on YouTube showing the process.

I'm not sure how you'd collect the vapor, I'm not even sure it'd work, but maybe you could soak the bud in a high boiling point solvent and then drop pressure. The solvent would dissolve cannibinoids, and then after pressure began to drop, cannibinoids would vaporize out of the solvent/bud mixture. Then you'd maybe seperate the vacuum into portions and allow air back in. The vapor would condense on the sides of the partitioned off portion of the chamber, then you'd use a bit of a low boil point solvent to wash the condensed oil from the sides and do a final vac purge?

I bought some live resin that looked very proccessed. It had what looked like THCA crystals soaked in terps. It looked like they were combining ingredients to make the product. This led me to think there's validity in what my friend shared. I doubt they'd create a product this way unless they've found an efficient procedure to extract precisely the cannibinoids desired. It would make a very consistent product despite the raw material supplied.

(I don't have a vac chamber to play with)

Click to expand...

Live resin sauce can form thca crystals under the right conditions just sitting in a jar. This is likely what you experienced. Any pics by chance?

ChiefRunningPhist said:

Anyone ever tried to extract cannibinoids by dropping pressure to their vaporization point?

I was at a friend's and they said that dispensaries are deploying a process by which they are able to gaseously remove the cannibinoids. Some of the used herb is then being resold on black market. I can't find anything on YouTube showing the process.

I'm not sure how you'd collect the vapor, I'm not even sure it'd work, but maybe you could soak the bud in a high boiling point solvent and then drop pressure. The solvent would dissolve cannibinoids, and then after pressure began to drop, cannibinoids would vaporize out of the solvent/bud mixture. Then you'd maybe seperate the vacuum into portions and allow air back in. The vapor would condense on the sides of the partitioned off portion of the chamber, then you'd use a bit of a low boil point solvent to wash the condensed oil from the sides and do a final vac purge?

I bought some live resin that looked very proccessed. It had what looked like THCA crystals soaked in terps. It looked like they were combining ingredients to make the product. This led me to think there's validity in what my friend shared. I doubt they'd create a product this way unless they've found an efficient procedure to extract precisely the cannibinoids desired. It would make a very consistent product despite the raw material supplied.

(I don't have a vac chamber to play with)

Click to expand...

I'm not aware of a method to remove cannabinoids and still retain a sellable bud.

Fractional distillation and CO2 extraction both allow the extractors to control what they remove and collect I do believe.

I've got a friend that is into extraction, and he uses a few different techniques to seperate the hash from the terpenes. Then he grows the hash into diamonds, and adds back as much terps as needed for that perfect flavor. Its some pretty cool science.

My bad i read that like you were volatizing oils then condensing a product

loucephur said:

Live resin sauce can form thca crystals under the right conditions just sitting in a jar. This is likely what you experienced. Any pics by chance?

Click to expand...

No pics, I smashed it fast lol, but here's a quick vid of the same thing, except there's maybe less "terp sauce" in the vid compared to the product I bought.

Thundercat said:

I've got a friend that is into extraction, and he uses a few different techniques to seperate the hash from the terpenes. Then he grows the hash into diamonds, and adds back as much terps as needed for that perfect flavor. Its some pretty cool science.

Click to expand...

That makes sense, it looked as if the product were "constructed."

I found a quick vid, maybe this is what they're doing (but I'm not convinced this is the way the industry is creating), but I've seen some bud that did look and have the appearance of being "stripped" of cannibinoids. The inside of the nugs still had some crystals but the less dense the matter the more it looked to have been solvent washed. The bud was still intact, though the smoke didn't get you anywhere. Looked like they were mass stripping outdoor herb possibly for terp sauce but not sure how plausible this is.

Kingrow1 said:

My bad i read that like you were volatizing oils then condensing a product

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was getting at.

Knowing that the trichs are located on the outside edges of the plant, maybe a solvent soak isn't needed. Maybe just a pressure drop, partitioning of chamber (so some of the vapor doesn't condense back onto the herb), collection from partitioned part of vac chamber after pressure was equalized and vapor condensed? I wonder how well the trich body insulates the THC within from the outside environment, ie, would the cannibinoids be able to pass through the trich body or would there have to be some rupture event happen before cannibinoids within trich heads were able to permeate into the vacuum?

Low Pressure Isolation???